Austin Dillon reveals mindset on Richmond return after last year’s controversy: ‘I’m too tired to be angry’

Austin Dillon does not have the energy to be angry about what happened to him after winning the race at Richmond last year. While speaking to reporters during this year’s post-Richmond press conference, Dillon was asked if it was hard to return to the track and be angry.

“I’m too tired to be angry,” Austin Dillon said. “I mean, I got a little cold, a broken rib, a lot of adversity. Man, some things you don’t understand at the time. Come back around. God has a way of putting that timing together. I feel like I was probably the calmest I’ve ever been tonight in the car, winning the race. I didn’t act a certain way. I was just thankful for the opportunity.

“It was just a timing thing. If you would have told me we would come back a year later and sitting in Victory Lane after all we went through, man, we went through that and I, like, cried in our appeal process because that win meant a lot to me to be able to race with Denny [Hamlin] and Joey [Logano].”

Austin Dillon said his car ‘kept getting better and better’ at Richmond

Dillon won last year’s race, but NASCAR penalized him for aggressive driving. It led to him missing the playoffs, but he was still credited with the win. This year, Dillon won the Richmond race, and he is officially playoff-bound.

Dillon also talked about how this year’s Richmond race was similar to last year’s. “Tonight it kind of played out the same way it did last year,” he said. “Our car just kept getting better and better. We weren’t that great at the start. A little tight. The guys did a very good job of just keeping up with the track for me. I was struggling giving them the information really. I thought I did a better job last year telling them what I needed.”

Dillon now has six victories in his NASCAR Cup Series career. Other than the last two Richmond races, the 35-year-old won the Daytona 500 in 2018 and the Coca-Cola 600 in 2017.